" Visions of a carboniferous millennium, when
there would be no more strikes and hardly any accidents, and altruistic
colliers would hew their hardest to get cheap and abundant coal for the
community, floated before the mind's eye as Mr. BRACE purred persuasively
along.
[Illustration: THE PIED PIPER OF ABERTILLERY
(MR. W. BRACE).
"FOR HE LED US, HE SAID, TO A JOYOUS LAND
WHERE WATERS GUSHED AND FRUIT-TREES GREW,
AND FLOWERS PUT FORTH A FAIRER HUE,
AND EVERYTHING WAS STRANGE AND NEW."]
Unfortunately for the Nationalisers Mr. LUNN thought it necessary later to
make a blood-and-thunder oration, threatening all sorts of dreadful things
(including a boycott of the newspapers) if the Miners' demands were
refused. Moreover, he made it clear that coal was only a beginning and that
the Labour Party's ultimate objective was nationalisation all round, and
wound up by reminding the House that "we are many and ye are few."
The PRIME MINISTER is not the man either to miss a chance or refuse a
challenge. The tone of his reply was set by Mr. LUNN, not by Mr. BRACE; and
though he had plenty of solid arguments to advance against the motion the
most telling passage in his speech was a quotation from "Comrade TROTSKY,"
showing what Nationalisation had spelt in Soviet Russia--labour
conscription in its most drastic shape. The nation, he declared, that had
fought for liberty throughout the world would stand to the death against
this new bondage.
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